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The Bible is All Lies

No, I know that's an overstatement, but it's not that much of an overstatement. I start flipping through the Bible at the beginning of Meeting for Worship looking for a passage I can unite with. Pentateuch? No, it has God telling the Israelites to kill all of those they have invaded. God never did any such thing. Psalms? No, they keep saying that if David (or whoever) is obedient his enemies will be trashed. And the same objection applies to most of the Old Testament, although I love Isaiah 58, not least because I learned it first as the Lent hymn "Now quit your care". I go on to a gospel, and it has Jesus saying "There will not be left a stone of the Temple on another stone". That may have been written back in after Jesus' death and after the Rebellion, but in any case even that is not true. I have to go all the way to the end of Romans, where Paul and Tertius are greeting the Christians in Rome by their names, before I find something I have no problems with. I may of course be arrogant, but if I were advising anyone to read the Bible I wd be advising them to pick and choose very carefully. See also The Bible for Grownups.

Comments

  1. Margot Lunnon29 January 2018 at 05:25

    Sorry folks a bit of Quaker promotion follows, look away now if you are allergic. We rewrite our Book of Discipline once every 30 years or so. That means it reflects our experience Now. We also don't feel we have to come to a Single Answer on any subject-- nor does The Bible, if we take it as a whole.

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